sprig to twig

As the days shorten and the light takes on that golden quality, making the end of the growing season equal parts poignant and glorious…the bloomers that strut their stuff late are especially appreciated. Here are a few from my Portland, Oregon garden:

Solidago‘Fireworks’ has been working up to this moment for weeks. It is at its most photogenic right now, but I treasure it earlier, when the blossoms are still in bud and close observation reveals strings of small yellow beads along the arching stems. It will become downright blowsy over the next two or three weeks, before it is time to cut it back for the winter.

Hepatacodium miconiodes is a small tree with shaggy, peeling bark and an arching habit. The flowers are just coming on, and will leave behind feathery “whatchamacallits” in rusty shades that rival any blossom for showiness.

Towering Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium maculatum set up housekeeping along the fence line with no encouragement. I could not have planned it better. Luckily, it increases every year.

The plume poppies, Macleaya cordata, look a lot like the smoke on a smoke tree. This is another passalong plant from Amy. I have moved it around to several locations since ‘99. This is the first site that has met with its approval…on the south side of the house with full sun, plus reflected heat from a concrete patio.

My favorite use of Rosa glauca was in a garden where it had been cut back hard in early spring. The resulting flush of foliage was dense and lush, with that bluish cast above and pinkish undersides. I can never bring myself to wield the loppers as necessary for that effect, because it would mean forfeiting these luscious hips after the fairly insignificant little pink blossoms have faded. The only pruning this shrub gets is done by the deer…not known for their artisty in such matters.

‘China Girl’ Kousa dogwood is lovely when flowering, but even better after the petals fall and the fruits redden. They are actually quite tasty, but I prefer to let them dry to use decoratively.

One of my favorite plants blooming right now is Belamcanda flava, but I am going to save it for a separate post in a day or two. Please come back to see it. If you have an interest in seeing what is blooming in gardens around the world, click on May Dreams Gardens in the blogroll at right. You will be glad you did.

I’m late, I’m late…for a very important date! If you haven’t a clue what that means, pop on over to May Dreams Gardens (use the link at right) to see what Carol has cooked up to put together gardeners from around the world. In the meantime, here is a peek at some of the beauties in bloom in my patch right now.

The first Japanese anemone ‘Honorine de Jobert’ popped just in time. I can’t get enough of her, and a good thing, too, because she is a prolific spreader.

The cardoon reaches for the sky.

‘Casa Blanca’ is the last of the lilies, after ‘Muscadet’ and then ‘Star Gazer’ have taken their turns perfuming the air.

Echinops banaticus ‘Blue Glow’ holds its steely balls high above spiky foliage in the east berm.

Fragraria ‘Lipstick’ is a groundcover strawberry I am trying out. So far, the deer have left it alone.

I know this only as gooseneck loosestrife. Anybody know the botanical name? Whatever…these witty little clumps of loosey goosey flower heads will always have a place in my shade garden, and in long-lasting bouquets.

The deer bit off every hosta blossom in the woodland at the bud stage. It is only this ‘Guacamole’, planted close to the house, that was allowed to progress to full flower.

This supermarket hydrangea holds its own with the named cultivars.

‘Limelight’ is a spectacular hydrangea…almost tall enough to qualify as a small tree.

‘Preziosa’ has varying shades of flowers on the same plant. I had some success with layering it, so I now have several at the woodland’s edge.

‘Percy’s Pride’ is my favorite of the Knifophias. It is crowded into the east berm with grasses, barberries and Echinops. Come spring, it will be divided and spread around. One of my favorite scenes from the movie The Queen was the long walk completely bordered by knifophia in full bloom. Another was the great pile of leeks in the royal kitchen…might there be a pattern here?

This lonely little balloon flower plant cries out for more of its kind.

Looking beyond the realm of our industry, Queen Anne’s Lace sprinkles the landscape with no encouragement from we diggers and connivers. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother…but not often.

Let’s go the alphabetical route this month, shall we?

I have two types of Acanthus. This one is spinosa. Note the spikiness of the leaves and the reddish-purple cast to the flower spikes. It is slightly hardier than mollis, whose leaves are large, shiny and lobed (a more likely inspiration for the decorative carvings on ancient columns). The plant I chose to photograph volunteered in its spot, and is much happier than those I tried to bend to my will in their placement.

Lysimachia ‘Alexander’ has variegated foliage coordinated with the grass behind it. Like its cousin the purple loosestrife, it wants to take over. Leaving a moat of mulch around it makes digging out aggressors fairly easy.

I call this Amy’s geranium. You have seen it before if you read my foliage post, but here it is in bloom. I might have thought the colors clashing, but Mom Nature knows her stuff, doesn’t she?

Robert Maplethorpe, move over.

A berm with minimal watering finally gave Eremurus the home it could settle into after much moving about.

‘Lucifer’ is the first of the crocosmias to bloom, and there is only the one, as apposed to drifts of the small orange variety yet to come.

A couple of Lysimachias, creeping Jenny and ‘Walkabout’, mingle in a pot at the feet of a tree waiting to grow strong enough to face life in the ground. I will be sorry when the time comes, because the combination at this moment is perfect.

Yellow was a color to which I gave a wide berth for years. Phygelius ‘Moonraker’ lured me in, and now yellow has found more bit parts than this director would have thought possible. Do you think there is a seductress out there plotting to do the same for pink?

Moth mullion is such an evocative name for this member of the Verbascum family, and highly appropriate, as it seems to hover here in the shade of the plume poppies.

When I walked around making a list of everything in flower, I counted 25 continuing bloomers and 21 that have come on since our last bloom day. That’s a lotta color and delight, but way more than you want to see here, even as lists.

I will close with something that is not blooming now. It went through its entire cycle in between the 15th of June and the 15th of July (very frustrating). Is it Pam who shuns red? I think so, but whoever you are, this bloom’s for you!

Welcome to all visitors from Carol’s May Dreams Gardens site…as well as to all ye who enter here from parts unknown. It is a bit frustrating to note the few blossoms that put in a brief but glorious appearance between the days we have committed to posting (15th of each month). They shall remain unheralded, unless they rise to the level of meriting their own posts.

This Aquilegia ‘Swallowtail’ was an exclusive offering from High Country Gardens. Note the long spurs, which can reach 4″.

Allium karativiense ‘Ivory Queen’ is low-growing and long-lasting. It has been blooming for a month, and it’s furry balls are just beginning to show signs of exhaustion.

The alliums keep coming up with aliases. This one used to be called christophii, but now goes by albopilosum, and I can’t begin to decipher what’s up with A. bulgaricum aka Nectaroscordum siculum. It remains one of my favorites, even if I don’t know what to call it. The Alliums, with their pungent bulbs, foil whatever is tunneling through my beds, so I will continue to experiment with the many offerings, along with the killer (and I mean that literally) daffodils. My A, schubertii was drowned by late rains, but I will simply move it to one of the berms rather than give up on its Sputniky, space-agey presence.

This is the last blossom on the tree peony ‘Chinese Dragon’. I use a combination of cutting bouquets and elaborate staking to keep the masses of blossoms from breaking off branches. I am told that as the plant matures it will become sturdier and more compact.

The foxgloves that grow wild in the meadow and along roadsides have migrated to several cultivated areas, and welcome to them.

My current favorite of the bearded irises is this flesh-toned beauty, but my fickle affections will no doubt transfer to the brunette when she comes along.

Philadelphus arrived as a mere stick from one of those cut-rate catalogs, but see how it thrives…and this is definitely where scratch and sniff would come in handy.

I have more appealing photos of Phlomis russeliana, but this one shows the architecture of the plant, which I find to be its most appealing feature.

The flowers on Rodgersia aesculifolia are just coming on…merely an excuse to show you the fabulous leaves, which run 26″ or so across.

The earliest of the lavenders is the bright and witty Spanish.

Buttercups sprinkle themselves everywhere. What could be more cheerful?

And there you have it for June. Still blooming from before are hellebores (they seem to go on forever), euphorbias (some just coming on and a few ready to be cut back), weigelia, blue-eyed-grass, silene, strawberry and blue star creeper. New bloomers that didn’t rate photos are dogwood ‘China Girl’, California poppy, chives, roses, snapdragon, catmint, heuchera, Lecesteria formosa and Viburnum dentata ‘Blue Muffin’.

You may have noticed posts on the 15th of the past couple of months with photos of what is blooming at the time. The brainchild of Carol at May Dreams Gardens, it attracts garden bloggers from far and wide. They post their pictures and comments, then leave a link on Carol’s site. What fun it is to tap into these avid gardeners’ personalities and to see what is blooming in different parts of the world. I always thought Portland OR was the mecca for growing things, but after skimming Pam’s site, I was almost ready to decamp to Texas. Of course it could very well have simply to do with Pam’s exceptional photography.

First up, as seen through branches of the acacia in the foreground, is sweet little Saxifraga andrewsii in combination with Penstemon newberryi. They seem happy in the gravel bed surrounding the pond.

In the woodland, Erythronium has followed me from place to place ever since I first dug a few from my mom’s yard. She had great swathes of them that had sprung up naturally, but I am still waiting for my three to start a family.

The apple trees are less showy than the cherries or the pears, but if one looks closely, their blossoms are the prettiest of all.

I must plant more of this Dicentra spectabilis so there will be plenty to add to spring posies. The white one (Alba) that was nearby has disappeared.

The flowers on Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi are an unexpected bonus. I bought it strictly for its scalloped leaves. Like the echeverias, these guys refuse to stick to the script, and keep morphing into new forms. Oh, well…that’s half the fun.

It almost seems like cheating to include something like this Armeria that went straight from the nursery into a pot on the deck, but I’ll do it anyway.

One of the few shrubs that came with the house was a full grown lilac. It fills the air with its perfume, and turns lovely rusty shades of red in the fall.

I once brought Silene to life from seed gathered on a camping trip in Canada. I mourned its loss when I tried, unsuccessfully, to move it. Now I find it growing wild all over the place, Yippee!

It takes a lot of anything to make an impression when the property is large. Rhododendrons are just the ticket. We buy a few each year, so our collection is starting to take on a wee bit of “gravitas”. ‘Horizon Monarch’ is right at that stage when you can see all of its stages at once, and how the color develops from bud to full flower. We try to seek out varieties with interesting foliage, so that they can hold their own after the fabulous flowers fade.

R ‘Misty Moonlight’ is in full bloom under the cedar trees.

Going from macro to micro, these little Ipheon ‘Wisley Blue’ are scattered at the base of the cherry trees. With the help of some scilla, they mask the dying foliage of the early tete a tete daffodils, but I haven’t come up with anything to take over once these go. Any ideas?

We’ve come a long way since March, when it was easy to cover every bloomin’ thing without fear of boring the audience. Now, with the whole world bursting at the seams, a bit of editing seems appropriate. Here’s the list of flowers that failed to make it onto my A-list: many Euphorbias upstaged by wulfenii, Polygonum bistorta ‘Superbum’, Myosotis scorpioides, Mahonia ‘King’s Ransom’, Galium odoratum (see previous post ‘May Wine’), Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Lilafree’, Choisya ‘Sun Dance’, iris, Poncirus trifoliata, and various tulips and viburnums.